The Kings officially hired D.J. Smith as their newest assistant coach on Tuesday, the team confirmed in a statement.
It’s something of an unusual move for Smith, who was fired as the head coach of the Ottawa Senators on Dec. 18. He, like departed Kings coach Todd McLellan, was in his fifth season with the same franchise. Now, he has accepted a lesser position with a downward-spiraling Kings club that tied the plebian Chicago Blackhawks for the fewest wins in January.
This final bit of cobbling crystallized who will be responsible for righting the Kings’ wayward ship in the final 34 games of a bipolar campaign that saw them start the year with a record number of consecutive road wins but has recently been unkind to them regardless of venue. The Kings (23-15-10) hold the first wild-card spot in the Western Conference with 56 points, but they are only four points from falling out and they have meandered through 17 games with just three victories since Dec. 28.
On Monday, General Manager Rob Blake alluded to an outside hire to fill the assistant coach void left by the promotion of power-play guru Jim Hiller to interim head coach. Almost immediately after Blake concluded his remarks, Sportsnet reported the Smith hire, and then the Kings officially confirmed it on Tuesday.
Smith became the latest addition to the myriad criss-crossings between the seemingly distant franchises. The most notable among them might be the competition between 2020’s Nos. 2 and 3 overall draft picks, the Kings’ Quinton Byfield and Ottawa’s Tim Stützle, and the indirect swap of goalies Joonas Korpisalo and Cam Talbot last summer.
Hiller and Smith also have prior history, having coached together as Toronto Maple Leafs assistants under Mike Babcock, who was also the head man in Detroit when McLellan won a Stanley Cup in Motown as an assistant in 2008. They also had somewhat similar playing careers, as dedicated pros who reached the top level but never stuck full-time (Hiller and…
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